


Sapphire Blue

by BlueMoon2002



Category: Super Mario Bros. (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Heterochromia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:33:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22284151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMoon2002/pseuds/BlueMoon2002
Summary: Princess Peach Toadstool was born with two blue eyes. The kingdom was convinced that it was a mistake.It wasn’t.
Relationships: Mario/Peach Toadstool, One-sided Bowser/Peach Toadstool
Comments: 10
Kudos: 78





	Sapphire Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Soulmate AU where soulmates are born with their left eye being the color of their soulmate’s. When two soulmates meet eyes, their left eye changes to their natural color.

On a warm summer day in the Mushroom Kingdom, Princess Peach Toadstool was born with two sapphire blue eyes.

Behind the scenes of celebration, the castle was anxious. No offered explanation would soothe the panicked king and queen, who insisted that there was no one who could have caused her to have two eyes of the same color. It was possible that she could have locked eyes with another infant in the hospital. The queen argued that her eyes were both blue before she was even taken away to be washed. It was possible that someone else in the building was her soulmate. The king argued that there was no way the stars would choose someone too old for the princess to be her true love.

Everyone argued until it couldn’t be denied anymore. The princess had simply been born with two blue eyes.

Her parents, of course, were terrified for her future. They didn’t know what having two identical eyes from birth could mean. And before they could make a decision regarding their daughter’s upbringing, they perished, leaving the princess to the care of their steward.

By then, the rumors had spread through the kingdom like a plague.

  
  
  


Peach learned about soulmates when she was young. When someone is born, their left eye is said to be the same color as their soulmate’s. When two soulmates lock eyes for the first time, their eyes change to match their right.

Peach saw this firsthand through all the people who came to meet their princess. She saw how most of the people, single people, had multi-colored eyes. It was the married people who had eyes of the same color.

When she looked into the mirror, she saw that her eyes were the same too. When she asked Toadsworth why that was, he said that she must have met her soulmate already.

“But how will I find them again!?” She cried out in a panic. Toadsworth rushed to calm her down.

“The stars have plans for you, princess,” he promised. “You will find your true love one day. I promise.”

She nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes. She left it at that.

  
  
  


When Peach was old enough to go outside the castle, she noticed that the people in town stared at her, the same way the people in the castle did. She saw how they would glance at her eyes, then look away, as if they didn’t want to be caught. She later discovered that that was exactly what they were doing.

She didn’t receive many stares when she went out and tried to play with the other kids. It was the adults who stared. It was the kids who asked questions.

“Have you met your soulmate already?” A Toad with one brown eye and one green eye asked. She shrugged. She didn’t know.

“Have your eyes always been like that?” A Toadette asked. She shrugged again. She supposed they had, since she didn’t remember a time when they  _ weren’t _ identically colored.

Eventually, she got uncomfortable with all the questions, and simply tried to get the other kids to play games with her. They did, of course. Their parents would have yelled at them if they hadn’t. But Peach felt an isolation from the others, and not because she was a princess and they were commoners. It was her eyes. The kids didn’t know if she was “normal” or not.

Near the end of the day, one of the kids started harassing her about it. He said she had two blue eyes because she didn’t have a soulmate, that she would be lonely forever until she was old and ugly. She ran to Toadsworth, crying, and he took her back to the castle.

  
  
  


That night, he told her the truth.

“You have always had blue eyes,” he said. “There is no second color.”

Recalling the words from the kids that afternoon, she asked, terrified, “Does that mean I don’t have a soulmate?”

“I didn’t say that!” Toadsworth exclaimed. “I’m certain the stars have made plans for you. You’re not the first person to be born with eyes of the same color.”

When she looked back on that moment, she would think that all the others must have been born to common households, since she was the only one everyone seemed to know about.

  
  
  


Peach didn’t go out much anymore. The kids always kept her isolated from the rest of the group, even when it looked like they included her in everything. Eventually, she stopped going out at all, preferring the company of adults.

She later realized that their company wasn’t much better.

  
  
  


Peach didn’t get to meet her cousin until she was six years old. Apparently, that was at the fault of her aunt and uncle, for when Peach’s parents died, the incident terrified Daisy’s so badly they kept her under lock and key until, finally, they allowed the two to meet.

Even at six, Daisy carried herself with a confidence Peach lacked. She walked into the room flanked by guards with authority and vigor, locking eyes with Peach and smiling.

Peach gasped. Daisy’s eyes were two bright blues, just like her own.

As the two bonded over toy castles and dolls, they talked about each other. Finally, Peach found the courage to ask Daisy about her eyes.

“What, these?” She said, pointing to them. Peach nodded. “My parents say I was born with them.”

“Like me!” Peach exclaimed. She felt a spark of hope in her chest with the knowledge that she wasn’t alone.

“Yeah,” Daisy agreed with a grin. “My parents act really weird about it,” she said with an eye roll. “They’re worried I won’t meet a guy or something.”

“People act weird with me too,” Peach replied shyly.

“Grown-ups always act weird,” Daisy stated. “I think they’re all being dumb. I don’t need a soulmate. I’ve got sports.”

The conversation then went to all the games Daisy liked to play. She was only six, but she’d seen sports on TV and already had her own equipment for some of them. Peach didn’t play sports, but she let Daisy talk on and on. She wanted her cousin to be friends with her, after all.

However, she couldn’t help but think back to what Daisy said earlier, about not needing a soulmate. Could it really be that simple?

When Peach asked Daisy about it, right before the end of her stay at the castle, she said “Boys are boring, anyway.”

She accepted her cousin’s answer. But it didn’t make her feel any better about it.

  
  
  


Throughout her childhood, Toadsworth kept the kingdom running as regent. But when Peach came of age, she would have to take responsibility herself. Until then, he taught her everything her parents couldn’t.

As she grew up, between visits with Daisy that she always looked forward to, she learned how to be a proper princess. She learned all the rules and laws, what to do and what not to do. She learned quickly. She was praised for her talent.

She also learned that every kingdom needed a king. Although there were kingdoms that could thrive without (The Bean-Bean Kingdom, for example, was ruled by a queen who raised her son, the prince, alone), the Mushroom Kingdom was not one of them. Peach could not become queen until she found a king.

It was preferred that her king be her soulmate.

Soulmates knew each other intimately. They could understand each other in a way no one else could. Peach could marry anyone she chose, but what did it matter, if they weren’t for her?

Daisy would have said it didn’t. But Peach was convinced that it did. She wanted to be good to her people. She wanted to be queen. But how could she, if she didn’t get married?

What if those kids had been right? What if she was doomed to live alone forever? What if she could never marry, never become queen?

As she grew older, she hated her eyes more and more.

  
  
  


“How do you do it?” Peach asked one day. This time, she was the one visiting Daisy’s kingdom, in Sarasaland. Like in the Mushroom Kingdom, she received strange glances and comments that just barely crossed the line between okay and offensive. Peach had noticed that, along with carrying herself with the confidence and authority of a queen, she had ignored every statement, every glance.

“Easy,” Daisy replied. “I don’t worry about it.”

Peach stared at her, surprised. Daisy saw the surprise on her face and decided to explain further.

“Everybody in Sarasaland-my parents, the nobles, the people outside-they always talk about me and my eyes, like they’re a defect just because they’re the same color. I mean, what’s the big deal? It’s just an eye color. It isn’t going to kill me.”

“But, don’t you need to get married to be queen?” Peach asked.

Daisy shook her head. “Nope. In Sarasaland, the king or queen passes the responsibility down to their firstborn, whether by retiring or dying.” She said it as if she hadn’t truly imagined the implications of her parents dying yet. Because, Peach realized, they hadn’t. Daisy had always had her parents. Peach’s had died so soon she couldn’t even remember a life with them.

“Oh.” She looked down. “In the Mushroom Kingdom, I need a husband to be queen.”

“Then get a husband!” Daisy exclaimed. “He doesn’t need to be your soulmate! If you love each other, that’s all that matters, right?”

“I suppose so,” Peach said.

Of course, she couldn’t get married now. She was fourteen. But she knew that she would be an adult one day. And when she became an adult, the people would expect her to find a husband.

She needed her soulmate.

And she didn’t have a soulmate.

  
  
  


Everybody either told Peach she was doomed or that she needed to simply wait and see. The stars had plans for her, they said. They wouldn’t doom her to a life of loneliness.

Their words became redundant. Soon, she lost count of how many times she’d heard the reassuring phrases, some of which came suddenly, without context. The words lost their meaning. They lost their power.

Every day, she looked in the mirror and saw the same blue eyes that she’d always had. And she hated them. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t have been normal. She should have been daydreaming about who her soulmate would be, not wondering if he even existed. She should have been gushing about until she drove Daisy insane. She should have talked about it with Toadsworth, with him sighing and talking about today’s youth.

Not this. It shouldn’t have to be like this.

  
  
  


Peach took full responsibility of her kingdom on her eighteenth birthday. She was prepared for this. She had grown into a beautiful young woman, with luscious golden hair, creamy skin, and eyes the color of the sky.

People noticed her beauty, of course. She danced with several men during her birthday ball, some of which were a little too old to be noticing someone like her. Others, the young suitors with multi-colored eyes, vied for her attention. They flirted with her, complimented her, talked to her.

She would have enjoyed the attention, but when she looked into those young men’s eyes, she saw the knowledge that no one in the ballroom was the one. No one in that ballroom was her soulmate.

At this point, she was certain there would never be anyone.

After the party, she laid in her bed, alone, and pretended the blankets cocooned around her were someone’s arms.

  
  
  


She sat on her throne and answered the questions of the people. She did her job, her duty. Toadsworth stayed by her side, always. At the end of every day, she went to bed, tired and overworked. She didn’t look in the mirror. She avoided the mirror whenever she could.

She hated the reminder of what she couldn’t have.  
  


She was barely twenty-one when the monotony ended with a bang.

Tensions between the Mushroom and Koopa Kingdoms were always tense. Peach had never met its sovereign, but she knew enough to imagine a terrifying beast with a temper that could kill.

Bowser  _ was _ terrifying. Especially when he shattered her army with one fell swoop, ripping and tearing his way to the throne room. He terrified her as he breathed hot breath onto her face and clutched her tiny body in his claws. She screamed as he destroyed her castle, screamed as his claws ripped her gown and dug into her flesh, screamed as he placed her in his Clown Car and carried her high into the air, her kingdom growing smaller and smaller as they went further away.

  
  
  


Bowser kidnapped Peach because he expected her to marry him. Not surprisingly, she said no. He got angry, of course. But, much to her surprise, he didn’t hurt her. He didn’t lash out at her. He didn’t take her to his bed and have his way with her.

He didn’t even call her names.

Instead, he looked into her identical eyes, and he asked her who her soulmate was.

He didn’t know. How could he not know? It felt like everyone knew Princess Peach, the monarch with two matching eyes, the princess without a soulmate. She felt a cruel satisfaction when she saw the stunned shock on Bowser’s face when she said she didn’t have a soulmate.

He didn’t say anything to her. He simply left her locked in her room.

There was no mirror.

  
  
  


She waited. Sometimes, Bowser came and tried to talk her into marriage. She refused. If she wasn’t going to have a soulmate, then she certainly wasn’t going to have a marriage to her kidnapper.

Mostly though, she sat in her room, waiting for someone to come for her. She saw no sign of an army. She heard no word from Toadsworth or Daisy or even the little Toads who served her.

They wouldn’t leave her, she was certain. Defective as she may be, she wasn’t a terrible ruler. The people had to care enough to save her, right?

...Maybe they would leave her there. Find a new princess, one who had a soulmate. Or just crown someone king while she stayed here, waiting for a rescue that would never happen.

With the way her life has gone, she wouldn’t be surprised.

Her only regret is that she didn’t get to say goodbye to the people who actually loved her.

  
  
  


Sometimes, she looked out her window at the scorched land outside the fortress. She could see the Koopa patrols from her view. When she looked to the horizon, she imagined an army coming to save her.

Her dreams never saw reality. She lost track of the days.

  
  
  


She was no longer certain of her people’s dedication. Bowser saw her depression, and she had to give him credit. He may have been a kidnapper, but he genuinely cared about her happiness.

Maybe she should contemplate Stockholm Syndrome. She could really use a friend now.

  
  
  


No one would come for her. She would simply have to accept that. Maybe she could find a new life here.

Maybe she would just be locked here with her blue eyes forever.

  
  
  


She could hear something coming towards her. Something that wasn’t Bowser. Something that could possibly be human.

She pulled herself from her trance of self-loathing and resignation and got up from the bed where she’d been sleeping, staring at the door in expectation. Was someone coming for her?

She heard the door rattle as whoever was on the other end struggled with the lock. Did they have the key? Where was Bowser?

Finally, the lock clicked, and the door swung open. Peach slid off the bed and stood as the door opened, revealing a disheveled man in blue overalls and a red shirt and hat. He wiped the sweat from his brow and looked up to meet her gaze.

“Your Highness, I-“ he stopped. She gasped.

His eyes were the exact same shade of blue as hers. Both of his eyes.

As she looked at him, she felt something inside of her click. She felt a piece of herself she hadn’t even realized was missing slide into place as she looked into the eyes of her rescuer.

Her heart began to race. She blinked her eyes at him, and she watched as a shuttle change came over them. His eyes weren’t completely identical; one was just a shade lighter than the other, so subtle it was impossible to notice. No one had needed to notice before, not until her. Somehow, she knew this just as she knew the eyes looking back at her.

As she watched, that subtle difference vanished. He stared at her, took in her somewhat disheveled appearance. He smiled awkwardly, his cheeks turning red.

Peach smiled the first real smile in what must have been forever.

“Ah... princess, I have been sent by your people to come and rescue you,” he said.

“Did you beat Bowser?” She asked. She couldn’t see him behind the young man.

“Er... I believe so. I mean, he fell into the lava.” He had an accent that she couldn’t place. She wondered where he came from, how he’d gotten to the Mushroom Kingdom, what had led him to come and rescue her.

She nodded at his answer. “He’ll survive, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said. “His kind are used to bathing in lava, although I’ve heard it can burn them if they aren’t careful.”

“Ah. I did not know that.” He shuffled his feet.

He was cute.

She wondered how he’d beaten Bowser. She wondered how he’d gotten here.

They would have plenty of time to talk, once they were far away from this castle.

After all, they were soulmates.

_ Soulmates. _

As if he’d thought the same thing, he stepped closer. “Er, princess, I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but...”

“Hm?”

“You’re eyes... They’re really beautiful.”

Peach’s smile grew. No one had ever called her eyes beautiful and meant it before.

“Thank you. You’re eyes are quite lovely as well.”

“Thank you. You know, where I’m from, people always treated me and my brother weirdly for it. They always thought that-“

“You didn’t have a soulmate,” she interrupted, because she knew what he was going to say. Of course she knew. She’d lived through the exact same thing.

He nodded. He looked up at her, and he smiled. Her heart, her very soul, was singing as he said, “I’m so glad that they were wrong. I was scared, at first, but now...”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I am relieved as well.”

He was her soulmate. Her  _ soulmate _ .

She had a soulmate!

“Could you tell me your name?” She asked. “I’d like to know who my rescuer is.”

_ And my soulmate. _

“My name’s Mario,” he answered. “And what may I call you?”

Mario. Mario. Mario.

Her soulmate.

And she was his.

The stars had been right all along.

“Well, Mario,” she said, loving the way the name felt on her tongue, “my name is Peach. It is truly an honor to finally meet you.”

She’d been waiting for him, she now realized. A tiny part of her that was aware of the truth had been waiting for this moment, when they could meet eyes and finally see that her blue eyes were never a mistake.

He took her hands in his. The two of them beamed at each other. She felt like she’d known him her entire life, because she saw herself in his eyes just as he saw himself in hers.

And she would get to know all about him as they made their way home.

“It’s an honor to meet you, too,” Mario said.

The two left the castle hand in hand. Mario introduced her to his brother, Luigi, who had accompanied him all this way. He also had identical blue eyes (like Daisy’s, Peach realized with yet another smile), and was ecstatic when he heard the news about the two of them. The three exited the castle, Bowser’s army too weakened to stop them. As they left the castle behind and the sun began to rise, Peach felt another sun rise, inside of her soul.

It was the dawn of her new life, with Mario at her side. Never again would she be alone.

For the first time since her birth, she didn’t care about her sapphire blue eyes, for they were Mario’s eyes as well.

As she was led away from the Koopas’ fortress, she glanced at the fading stars, and she thanked them.

_ Thank you for not abandoning me. Thank you for not forgetting me. _

_ Thank you for bringing my soulmate to me. _


End file.
